Togara Muzanenhamo Biography

At first the stubborn growth resists him, till each stroke
is fluently flung to clear the knee-high grass, his task
down to an art, the pendulous swing of knees slightly
giving, his right arm catching the sun wet off the blade.

All day the work, shuffling steps into shuffled clearings,
beetles and crickets rising off cordite clicks sparking
off stone, bearded chin sequinned with sweat. The heat
seems not to bother him, but steels his concentration

deep in the trials of his faith. Why the sun rises and falls,
why his jaundiced wife believes God will save them all,
is just as unclear as why his newborn's unfinished death
hangs heavy on every dawn. In the music of his labour,

each composed thresh throws slashed grass to sunlight,
each mastered stroke floats timed beneath the weight
of the sun burning deep into his heart, the mastered art
of his arm fluent with the song the hours constantly sing.
...

He will not understand her fascination
with rain, these summer months of water
that somehow keep the money coming in,
paying for the nurses his granddaughter

has slowly learnt to trust. Now all the good
help is gone, he feels he can spot liars
with one look; and if he could, he would
take care of her himself. All these prayers

for a new body! She doesn't understand
the joke, but simply stares out the window
where an old broken-down tractor stands

in the backyard, grass screaming out of
worn sprockets, joints rusting above slow
gulfs of shadow shot wild with foxglove.
...

James A. Mattern, noted flier, was granted permission by the Commerce Department today to make an aerial search for the Russian aviators believed lost in the Arctic wilderness.
In making the search, Mr. Mattern will be returning a favor from Sigismund Levanevsky, leader of the Russian flight.
The Russian went to Mr. Mattern's rescue a few years ago when the American aviator was marooned in Northern Siberia.

Pittsburg Post-Gazette, August 15, 1937
From Weeks Field the sun hangs uncertain,
the air sharpened by the curse of razored winds -
sheets of sky and sea layered silver with ice.
Each hour vanishes into broken distances,
the shape of the world formed on each breath, oiled drops
shivering wet off rivets - the engine
moaning dark at the wrists.

Evening swivels west as the Texan turns,
her wings banked shallow above the ocean's crust -
pedals and levers at their place for altitude.
Through angled glass, the quiet world of a frozen
solitude, a vast naked bridge of bruised light bridging continents,
white skirts of blind speed beaming
over lengths of desolate prose.

The radio crackles white with endless noise,
the ceiling of the world dry with fate.
And banking into the failing light, he remembers the furled
wisps sparked by whips of air turning up as the Russian landed -
then, the rattled chop of blades as the plane left for Nome,
the compass marked for home and all
the vaporous qualities of life.

Time sinks fast, darkening with ancient layers
creaking below, unsaid prayers the dead
have set to verse. A grey breath of air slips heavily
off each wing, the flat drone of the engine working
the mind to paint the final flight with a grieved art - the soul's white feathers
burning bright as the prototype rolled and crashed
deep into the heart of the unknown.
...

Last week saw the last of the summer's heat. Tonight, the first cool drafts bring the smells of cooked dinners into the room. The faint sounds of dishes in sinks seep through the walls as children play ball games beneath streetlamps speckled with insects' wings, and the final nuances of the summer sky take time to fade.

And two screams in shadows and shade - one of laughter, one of fear; a boy with a look of grown-up avarice chases another to the bright safety of a front door. The pursuer stops not far off the threshold - winking, pounding his fist on the gate, for he knows there'll always be a tomorrow.

And tomorrow's autumn by date, handfuls of leaves have fallen, yet the air is still summer's apart from the fostering a colder tinge when the sun sets. Ball games will stop with the oncoming pace of winter's darkness, smells of cooked dinners will be retained in safe, heated, houses; and by the gate, still pounding his fist, the runner's pursuer will wait for that tomorrow which never fails to come.
...

They still drew the old roller over the cricket pitches with men
yoked like a team of oxen to the stubborn iron wheel.
The grass smelt as the grass did, all rich beneath the afternoon sun -
the heat flashing to the ground with a blinding flick of steel.
All the fields were there - but much smaller than remembered -
the rugby and football grounds unused, the whitewashed lines
washed out by the rains, but the names of dead Jesuits, on signs,
still stood on the preened edges - in traditional white and red.

Up into view the memorable tower of stone rose with all the dreams
of climbing up the winding cool stairwell, up to the top of the turret
where thoughts of fields, soft with breaths of Natal grass, met
the sky with hope and refuge. But those were just a schoolboy's dreams
brought on by the sight of the huge bronze plaque of St. George
plunging his spear, extinguishing our fears of the dragon.
Though all that bullshit vanished with age, the staged hero on the forged
plaque still remained some old myth the Jesuits liked to work on.

'I'm here to go through the Chronicles.' ''86 to the mid 90's.'
The receptionist is grey and half-deaf, I'm apparently soft spoken -
so there's a lot of repetition accompanied by grimaces and apologies.
'I'm here to go through the Chronicles.' 'Yes', to another question,
'I did attend here some years back.' 'Yes, an Old Georgian, an old boy.'
The phone slowly goes up to her ear as she mentions something
about visits and strange requests from foreign journalists wanting
to sit in on classes or have private interviews with the boys.

'Penny?' 'Yes, Penny it's me'. 'I seem to have a safe one here.'
'Wants to go through the Chronicles.' 'Something about poetry.'
Her small eyes look up. 'You do remember the way to the library?'
I had forgotten, but then retrace the steps in my mind to get there.
Each class I pass, a voice spills from the mock-Edwardian windows,
the red polished floors tap under my feet, and a sweet blessedness
fills me that I'm not sat in those sweat-rooms of learning, shadows
of my youth, daydreaming about a new-world after the first kiss.

The study-hall has lost all its desks and holds an array of instruments
and chairs for classical musicians. The fountain in the quad is gone now,
and at first it didn't mean a thing to me - but then a crude bewilderment
took hold when a memory tried to find its place in the absence; and how
on earth they removed it had me lost - the lawn was perfectly smooth.
The weights' room, where our hands were beaten blue by a leather wad,
where iron was pumped on hot afternoons, was now clean and had
the smell of sweat and leather replaced by veneered internet booths.

Outside an office a boy lifted his hat and said 'Good morning' in a way
that had me question what he'd said. It was only when I looked back
that I noticed the strain on his face, his rheumy eyes and the big black
words scoured across his chest, FAGGOT. I could see how easily they
could have pinned him down. The tree was there where we sat at break
trying to forget the colour bar that still hasn't faded outside the gates;
the smell of musasa leaves and old orange peels revived a dead ache
that filled my belly: a mob outside the science-labs, fists of other kids...

When I met Penny she smiled, and something told me
it wasn't a strange request to come here and go through the Chronicles.
She had them stacked up on her desk, all piled up chronologically -
towers of memories, names and dates in black and white at my disposal.
I sat down, leafed through the pages, the photographs alive in my head;
and after an hour of being immersed in the vivid quiet, the bell rang:
It was still that same high-pitched drill that once brought relief as it sang
through the long corridors, but with it also came a certain dread.
...